Ouch! – A funny story

This post is inspired by Britt’s One-Sided Story (House on a Hill). She shared some of her injury stories and we can all relate. I guess that’s the deal when your hobby involves a 1,000+ pound animal with a mind of it’s own, eh?

If you are so inclined, I invite you to also share an injury story that is somehow horse related. Hopefully you can laugh at it now.

My story is from when I was a young teenager. In addition to horse riding, I tried lots of other sports – soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. My parents thought it was good for me (and secretly my dad was hoping I’d fall in love with one of those sports and give up the horse-craze. Ha!)

As happens, I twisted an ankle playing soccer. It was a hairline fracture and I ended up getting a cast. It was a regular hard plaster cast, but I had a booty for walking that strapped over it – luckily I didn’t need crutches. It was a nuisance, especially with the 6+ weeks off from riding. The cast couldn’t fit into a stirrup and risk of further injury was the concern.

I remember giving my parents a hard time, joking that soccer was more dangerous than horse riding since I’d hurt myself more in conventional sports than I had at the barn.

I endured the 6 weeks off with minimal grace. I still needed to get my horse out, so he was ridden by others at the barn and I turned him out and longed him regularly. I was fairly mobile with the walking cast.

The day before I was set to get my cast removed, I decided to hop on my horse bareback. After all, the injury was all healed, right? No risk of compounding the fracture. Plus no saddle = no issue with cast fitting into stirrup.

The ride completely went fine. It was very nice to be on back of a horse again.

It was time to dismount, and of course I needed to be VERY careful and not land on my casted foot. Unfortunately I was too careful and over-exaggerated the landing on my good foot – I landed on it HARD.

The next day I got my cast removed…and a new cast put on the other ankle! It had gotten a hairline fracture from the dismount!!